Joe Biden continues his September vanishing act 40 days away from the election

The presidential election is 40 days away, and Joe Biden is running an absentee campaign.

The Democratic presidential nominee called a campaign lid once again this morning, meaning he won’t be making any public appearances for the entire day. Biden has disappeared before noon Eastern time on nine of the first 24 days of September. That includes a full lid called at 8:30 a.m. the morning after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein contends that these lids are because Biden is doing debate prep and, therefore, are no big deal. If he really is doing debate prep for 10-plus hours once every three days, Biden better have the best debate performance of all time. And yet, Biden said he was only planning to get into debate prep “really heavily” starting today, leaving the rest of his calendar unaccounted for.

Biden is trying to coast into the presidency without doing much besides making sure his name appears on the ballot. He blundered his way to the Democratic nomination when Democrats panicked and lined up behind him to defeat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. It all could have turned out very differently if the Iowa caucuses debacle hadn’t blunted the momentum of someone like Pete Buttigieg.

Biden may win if the electorate truly suffers from President Trump burnout. But Hillary Clinton attempted a similar strategy in her 2016 defeat, and Biden is running behind where Clinton was at this point in 2016 in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Biden didn’t even accept the nomination in person in Wisconsin, where the Democratic National Convention was set to take place.

Even if Biden’s disappearing act could help him win, it speaks poorly to his preparedness for the presidency. Biden has been treated gently by the media, at least when he hasn’t been ducking their questions entirely. Even now, with an important Supreme Court vacancy, Biden refuses to follow Trump’s lead and release a list of potential candidates who can be vetted.

“I’m not Donald Trump” is not a plan for governance. It’s a campaign strategy. And it’s not a very good one, considering that Biden is still unable to determine or communicate his position on packing the Supreme Court, banning fracking, or his national mask mandate that may or may not be a mandate.

The first presidential debate is coming up on Tuesday, so Biden won’t be able to run out the clock forever. Even though some states have started voting, the bulk of voters have yet to cast their votes. If Biden thinks leaving voters in the dark will earn him their votes, Democrats could just be in for a Clintonesque disappointment.

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